Tin Pan Alley was the cradle of the music industry in the United States. Here, American popular music as we have come to know it was first manufactured and promoted through sheet music and its compelling representative illustrations.

This exhibition of sheet music covers, and other illustrations, are drawn from the collection of Harlem historian John T. Reddick whose research has focused on that community’s Black and Jewish music culture between 1890-1930.  The illustrations on sheet music served as an important tool in marketing Tin Pan Alley songs and capturing their spirit in the minds of the public.  The sheet music helps tell the stories of the songwriters, music publishers and performers — many of whom were Eastern European Jewish immigrants and Black Americans — that formed the sound and industry of American Popular Music in the first half of the 20th Century.